FEB 1996:

MAR 1996:

APR 1996:

• John Koloen and Laura Burns of Burns-Koloen Communications announce that their flagship magazine MICROpendium, which started life in February 1984, was forced to go bi-monthly, due to the deline in advertising and subscription revenues.

• APPLE -- Apple appoints Gil Amelio as CEO.

MAY 1996:

• Mickey Cendrowski releases Load Master v2.12.

• Harry Wilhelm completes work on the never-released EZ-KEYS 6000 programming and macro generation tool for use by a Supercart/Super Space or the RAMBO space on a Horizon Ram Disk.
  

• The Pittsburgh, PA TI Users Group, affectionately known as PUG, disbands after 16 years (1981-1996).

• The 1996 Multi User Group Conference moves to Cleveland, OH and is held on May 25th. It is sponsored by the Northcoast 99ers.

• PC/MS-DOS -- Netscape ships Navigator 2.02 and Microsoft quickly counters with Explorer 2.0.

• JIM PETERSON AWARDS ANNOUNCED! -- The first ever Jim Petersom Awards were announced by Glenn Bernasek of the Lima (OH) Users Group. The recipients are:
  • Charles Good - TI-99/4A COMMUNITY SERVICE
  • Tony and Will McGovern - TI-99/4A SOFTWARE
  • Bud Mills - TI-99/4A HARDWARE
  • Tim Tesch and Beery Miller - MYARC GENEVE 9640

JUN 1996:

• Nintendo ships its 64-bit games module.

JUL 1996:

• Bruce Harrison releases Speed Read for the TI-99/4A, based loosely on the Navarone cartridge product Speed Reading, Harrison's commercial offering came about as the result of a request received from Joe Simmons of Etowah, TN while both 99ers were attending the MUG Conference in Lima, OH. The request was made of Harrison because of his assembly language progamming prowess.

• On July 30th Atari Corporation merges with JTS, a disk drive company, effectively putting an end to the company founded by Nolan Bushnell 20 years earlier. JTS would later sell off all Atari assets to Hasbro on Feb 23, 1998 for $5 million. "JTS sold substantially all of the assets of the Company's Atari Division, consisting primarily of Atari home computer games and the intellectual property rights and license agreements associated with such games (the "Atari Assets"), to HIACXI, Corp. ("HIAC"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hasbro Interactive, Inc., for $5,000,000 in cash. JTS filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection on December 4, 1998, and then converted it to Chapter 7 on January 28, 1999. What is the difference between the two? Christina Wood from PC World magazine (July 1998, p. 41) says this: If the company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, don't worry. The business should operate as usual -- it's just reorganizing. If the company files under Chapter 7, worry. The enterprise is going out of business and planning to liquidate its assets to pay off certain creditors." (Don Thomas 75300.1267@compuserve.com)

• COMMODORE -- Escom AG, purchaser of the rights to the Commodore Amiga in 1994, files for bankruptcy.

AUG 1996:

SEP 1996:

OCT 1996:

NOV 1996:

• Steve Jobs returns to Apple.

• The 14th Annual Chicago TI Faire takes place in Evanston, IL on November 9th.

• PC/MS-DOS -- The first Windows CE handhelds appear at Comdex.

DEC 1996:  

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